


Experiments

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Community: dw_straybunnies, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 22:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz finds herself alone in the Doctor's time machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experiments

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Prompt of the Month July 2012](http://dw-straybunnies.livejournal.com/42416.html), from a prompt left by Justice Turtle.

“Doctor?” Liz called on entering the laboratory. Then, finding it empty, she directed an exasperated look at the battered Police Box standing in the corner. She walked over and for the first time, poked her head in through the door. 

“Doctor,” she said. “That was the Brigadier on the phone. He says –”

Liz stopped, taking in the impossibility of what she was seeing. She stepped fully inside without even realising, drawn by curiosity. Instead of the dark and cramped interior she had expected, she was standing in a comparatively large room. Its uniform light grey colour and brightness made it seem even more unreal than its transcendental size. 

She still couldn’t see the Doctor, until she moved further in and found him – halfway underneath the hexagonal console at the centre of the room. He had wires and improbable spare parts scattered around him. _Well, that much was perfectly normal_ , she thought.

“Doctor,” she said, kneeling down beside him. “The Brigadier –”

He re-emerged, and lifted his head to smile at her. “Liz, my dear. What did you want?”

Around them, the lights dimmed and brightened again, and the low, reassuring hum became louder – and suddenly uneven and somehow unwelcoming. 

“Oh, now, come on, old girl,” said the Doctor, patting the nearest section of the console available. “It’s only Liz.” He gave Liz a rueful glance. “I think you’ve alarmed her.”

Liz raised an eyebrow, suspecting she was being made fun of, but not entirely sure. “Oh, yes. Very likely.”

“No, no,” the Doctor said. “She isn’t usually like this, but then right now, she’s... Well.” He moved out from under the console fully and stood, with a helping hand from Liz, and then gestured at the mess. “I may have got a little carried away. I suppose that leaves her a little more… well… vulnerable than usual.”

Liz opened her mouth to argue with him, about to point out that, whatever his TARDIS was, it was still only a machine, but he stopped her, touching her cheek with his finger.

“Anyway, now you’re here, if you could keep an eye on things while I – well, just make sure that dial doesn’t move – I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone.”

She swung around, but she wasn’t fast enough to stop him. She leant backwards against the console with a roll of her eyes. Still, she thought, she’d better wait here and trust he wasn’t going to be long. If the Doctor was in the middle of something, she had learned by now that leaving whatever experiment it was unwatched was likely to result in an explosion – or worse.

Liz glanced at her watch, and then registered that worrying change in the light and sound around her again. Since no one else was around, she put a hand to the console next to her, and patted it. She saw the mess of wiring and its inner working spilling out around it, and winced slightly. While she didn’t know how this machine worked, she did recognise an unscientific mess when she saw one.

“Oh, Doctor,” she said, “what on Earth have you been doing in here?”

The hum had grown more regular again, she realised and she glanced around her, more warily. Perhaps the Doctor hadn’t been making fun of her after all, or not entirely.

The exposed wiring bothered her somehow, and she moved nearer to examine a tangle of them; burnt and frayed at the ends. “Poor thing,” she said, under her breath to the time machine.

There was a small explosion in front of her: sparks and coloured smoke spitting out of one of the panels, and the doors shut even as the lights dimmed again.

“Doctor?” He either wasn’t out there, or he couldn’t hear her, she thought, and bent down to retrieve a torch he’d been using. She shone it onto the console. “I don’t know what any of this is.”

Still, she thought, if she looked, she might be able to do something useful – preferably before anything else exploded and took her with it. She shone the narrow torch onto the damaged panel and then looked underneath it. There was a wire, hanging loose. Something about it nagged at her mind in a way she couldn’t explain. Liz hesitated, and then took a deep breath. If she was being exceptionally foolish, at least there was no one else here to see it. “You want me to connect this?”

A light flashed on the panel above as if in response to her words. It could mean anything – and it wasn’t very sensible to start meddling about with alien technology. But still she looked from that small light and back underneath the console to where it appeared the wire should be. That was within her limited human capability, she thought. She reached for a screwdriver the Doctor had left lying on the floor, and made the connection.

Once she’d done that, it seemed natural to follow the wire along, to find a loose junction box – if that was what it was – and onwards. She didn’t allow herself to stop and think or question it, but followed her instinct – something was guiding her, she thought, feeling oddly certain of that. She let it and, as she worked she could see, in flashes in her mind, logic or a pattern here and there in the circuitry – but the knowledge slid away as soon as she tried to focus on it.

“There,” she said, as the lights finally brightened again. “I suppose he was getting a bit impatient.” Not that the Doctor really needed her making excuses for him, she thought to herself. 

Then she sat up, and touched the console, letting her fingers play about the controls lightly. “But I expect you know that,” she said.

The doors remained shut, however, and there was something she couldn’t work out nagging at the back of her mind. She looked back inside the panel she’d been investigating; let her hand trail over the controls until something moved in her head, and then she found another loose wire, a yellow one this time. She fixed it in place and gave a short smile of satisfaction.

As she finished and the doors opened inward, she saw a light or a spark from where she was holding onto the wire, and though she tried to let go, and move away in time, it brightened and engulfed her.

It didn’t burn, though. She had all the breath knocked out of her and the light became darkness, and then in that darkness she could see stars; whole galaxies in sharp detail, moving around her before she blacked out.

*

“Liz, my dear,” said the Doctor. He was kneeling beside her now, as she opened her eyes and blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry. I think I may have pushed the TARDIS a little too far.”

“I saw stars,” she said, catching at his jacket. They had been as real as the black velvet she was touching now, she was sure of it. Time, space, everything, had been calculable for an instant. It was fading fast, though.

“I’m not surprised. You must have hit your head when you fell.”

Liz looked up at him, but bit back a response. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d begin to argue in favour of something she didn’t exactly believe herself – or how she could ask him about his ship and its nature, when suddenly it felt as if it might be intrusive.

“Do you feel all right?”

She nodded and let him help her up.

“Hmm, now,” said the Doctor, immediately drifting back towards the console. “Let me see…”

Liz winced, and registered that she had a fast-growing headache. She reached out and caught hold of the Doctor’s arm. She wanted to tell him not to do that, not any more, not just yet. Couldn’t he see that she – it – had had enough? But she couldn’t imagine saying that aloud.

“Doctor,” she said instead, “I actually came in here to tell you that the Brigadier was on the phone.”

“Was he? What did he want this time?”

Liz rubbed her forehead. “He’s down in Buckinghamshire, remember? He says he’s found some very unusual footprints that he’d like you to take a look at.”

“Footprints?” said the Doctor. “Shouldn’t he call Scotland Yard for that sort of thing?”

Liz folded her arms. “Doctor. Not that sort of footprint. Animal prints – unidentified and rather large. Here.” She finally got the chance to pull the torn-off piece of paper out of her pocket, and passed it to him.

The Doctor glanced at her hastily written note with a show of being uninterested, and then he stopped. “Good grief,” he said. “Yes. I think I had better get down there at once. Goodness only knows what he’ll do if I don’t. Liz, perhaps – well, you should probably see someone about that knock to your head.”

She nodded. Usually, she would have argued but the thumping headache she’d now gained made his point for him. 

“Yes, good,” said the Doctor, with a smile, before hurrying out of the time machine again.

Liz gave a short laugh as she watched the double doors close after him. He was right, she knew. She had better take herself off to sickbay and check she hadn’t got concussion. It would probably explain a lot if she had, she thought. However, she lingered where she was for a little while longer. 

For now, she found, there was something peaceful and reassuring in simply being in here, in this ship.


End file.
